Condoleezza RiceColin Powell, who in all likelihood will renounce to using the phrase “between a rock and a hard place” for the rest of his life, is leaving the US administration, and Condoleezza Rice, currently US National Security Advisor, has been nominated by President Bush as next Secretary of State. Many in Europe,

Blood and Treasure informs us of a pressing matter caused by EU expansion - a shortage of lard in British supermarkets. But it may not represent all bad news:
But when you think about it, lard is a great metaphor for the European Union. Wherever you go there?s the same bland, white, fatty mass. But each [...]

It will probably still take some time until another EU referendum will be held in Norway, given the country’s history of rejecting membership in 1972 as well as in 1994. But a new opinion poll suggests that Norwegian membership-proponents have all reason to smile these days. The “yes”-camp is growing as previously undecided voters seem [...]

Brad DeLong agrees with Daniel Drezner that, in a time in which the world’s news agenda is once again dominated by hatred and violence, it is important to remember that keeping up the hope for a peaceful future is not necessarily in vain.
Let us give thanks that the most brutal and blood-soaked border in the [...]

Her Majesty’s government?Some light Saturday reading…
I think Tony Blair will from now on try to leave press conferences before someone gets a chance to ask the last question.
Back in September 2003 in Berlin, a British journalist asked Blair about being embarrassed about being a spokesperson for the American President when talking to Chancellor [...]

I suppose Yasir Arafat’s death and the reaction on “the Palestinian street” will give rise to a few discussions about the concept of political “irrelevance”. Benny Morris starts.
Writing in the New York Times, the recently turned hawkish Israeli historian and author of “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem“, is already missing the man, in [...]

Despite having turned Amsterdam’s red light district into some kind of adult entertainment Disneyland, and despite having instituted one of the world’s most relaxed drug policy regimes, the Netherlands were not always home to deep rooted respect of alternative lifestyles.

Read more… or Read [...]

The US state of Delaware uses the name ‘The First State’ because it was the first of the original 13 states to ratify the US Constitution and today, Lithuania earned itself the possible title of ‘First Country’ in years to come as it became the first country to ratify the European Constitution. Unlike the battles [...]

BusinessWeek has joined the ranks of those in the US who are sulking because of international, particularly European, criticism, concern, laughter, and disbelief about both process and result of the US Presidential election. The magazine’s John Rossant is now beating back in this week’s issue, explaining that - even in today’s Europe - life’s not [...]

I suspect that I’m in a minority of AFOE’s writers and readers in that I actually saw the Berlin Wall in place pre-1989. We were on a school trip to Germany in 1987 and had actually been given permission to travel to West Berlin, so we naturally went to see the Wall. Strangely, though, it’s [...]